Reflections of the Living
by CSI-missy
Summary: Nathan reflects on what his life will be like now. Spoilers for season 3, Petrellicest, continuation but not really of Now that I lost you.


**Disclaimer: Heroes is the property of Tim Kring. I don't claim ownership. at all**

**A/N: Consider this connected to Now that I lost you. Nathan relfects on what his life will become now that he isn't dead.**

**SPOILERS FOR SEASON THREE!!**

Nathan Reflects:

The things he's done in his life make his insides swim with guilt and his mind scream in pain.

If he could go back and tell himself to fix the problems he knows he caused and the correct the mistakes he's made.

If he could take back that first kiss they shared when they were younger and realizing that the secrets couldn't be kept.

But he wonders in his heart, where there is still some darkness, if he even would.

Would he change the past or simply relive it the way it was, enjoying every second of guilty pleasure?

He knows that he wouldn't change a thing except to have not kept it inside for so many years.

He wouldn't have pushed him out of his life and replaced him so easily when he stepped into his new life.

After all, who never left his side through all of this, and who was still missing from the picture.

He had been dead but he wasn't anymore and he knew that this was a gift; a second chance to fix his life.

When the bullet hit him, and the hot feel of blood leaving his body had over come him he had felt hands grip him tightly.

The places the mind goes when it thinks it's over, and that there's no point in staying focused on the irrelevant.

Those hands had held him before and he could remember as he hit the ground, the gentle feel that they'd had before.

There was no urgency back then, and it wasn't about life or death, just pleasure and the warmth of the other.

But that isn't the way he's supposed to be thinking now.  
Now he needs to hide those thoughts again, and suppress the urge to act on feelings that he's not supposed to have.

Somebody has asked him what it was like to die and then find that he had this second chance.

He smiles and takes a deep breath, focusing on that feeling of waking up again.

It was not peaceful, nor blissful.

It was like being plunged into a hot bath after being very cold for a very long time, and having all the blood rapidly return to your extremities.

But he doesn't say that because he knows that's not what they want to hear.

He has just escaped death, after trying to tell the world the biggest truth that anybody has ever heard, and already he lies again.

He tells them it was like waking up in a warm bed after a good dream, where everything is happy and beautiful.

He says that waking up was painful because he had to return to a world he knew was hurting and in pain.

He says he wished he could just close his eyes and drift back into the warmth of God's embrace.

But in his heart he knows it's not God's embrace he wants to sink into right now, nor the one he wanted when he came back.

He wants the soft, strong arms of the only person in the entire world he can never have again.

He doesn't want to live a lie, or hide his true feelings, but now he has to even more then before.

How many times did he sneak a kiss before, during his campaign for congress, even though there was anger in each word the two spoke?

Not anymore.

Not with the world watching, and him never knowing for sure if it was the real one he was looking at.

He has big plans for this.

Senator.

He'll keep Peter as close as he can, to show the good tight family values of the Petrelli's, and maybe even see if Heidi will let him see the boys.

Maybe he'll ask Claire to help him.

If he can see her.

Be there.

Her father.

But will he keep his hands to himself and not screw this up.

If Peter is so close can he keep himself from simply pulling him aside into the nearest office and kissing him?

He can.

He will.

He smiles for the cameras and shows that the impossible is possible and that all is not lost.

If he can survive death than this world can survive all its problems and stay on top of the world.

He wrote his own speech this time.

Tracy liked it.

That's what needs to matter now.

Tracy.

Not Peter.

The thought burns his heart, but it eases the guilt in his soul and he puts one arm around her shoulders.

He can see Peter, the real Peter, in the front of the crowd.

"I'm sorry, Pete," he thinks.

Peter nods.

Nathan wonders, maybe even hopes, he heard that thought.

Because he really is.


End file.
